The Sandbox Effect: Not a Nice Place to Play
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Wayne Hurlbert eloquently offers calming advice to webmasters who are stuck in the Sandbox. To help allay the confusion some may feel when their SERPs drop after their site was ranking well, Hurlbert lists ways to take advantage of the hiatus to improve your site and turn something that seems like a detriment into an asset.
Despite its pleasant sounding name, the so-called Sandbox Effect is more like quicksand than a playground to many webmasters.
Named for the phenomenon of new websites being held back, in the search engine results pages (SERPs) by leading search engine Google, the Sandbox Effect has many website owners upset. When a new website is indexed in Google, it often receives what many observers consider to be a new site bonus. The brand new site will rocket to the top of the SERPs charts for a brief, shining moment. From there, it's all downhill.
After the initial glorious days at the top of the search rankings for the most important keywords, the site finds itself so deeply buried in the Google SERPs as to be almost non-existent. Even though the website may have strong Google PageRank, many powerful and themed incoming links, and good content, the site will still feel the dampening effect of the Sandbox.
While the website is buried deeply in the sand at Google, the same site may enjoy strong search rankings, for the same keyword phrases in Yahoo and MSN Search. The Sandbox Effect appears to be a Google only event.
You need to examine what you can do to get out of the Sandbox. How you can use the time spent in the sandy desert, can help your site explode back into the SERPs when the damper is removed.
Next: What is the Sandbox Effect? >>
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